Will robots ever deserve rights?

[Mnementh]

Some misconceptions are present here. People claim that computers cannot have consciousness, because they only do what the program says they should do. You forget that basically humans (and animals and plants) are organic robots/computers. We do what we are programmed to do. Yes, our program is more evolved than that of current computers, but it is basically a program. Nobody created it though, it was created over billions of years in the process of evolution. We can simulate evolution (lookup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm ), so I'm pretty confident that at least is an angle we can produce AIs with consciousness. Also super-computers are built to simulate the brain of a cat and mice, these will help to understand better how the brain works (we know not much about that) and that would in the long term help to produce AI.

But I also think, it will take a long time. I think at least 50 more years, before we see the first AI. Reason is, that human brains have way more capacity than computers. As said before, we are currently on the task to simulate a cat-brain, that is some steps away from human brain. And they need a super-computer for that. We are currently not able to produce electronics, that is as effective as neurons. That's why we need a big room full of electronics to simulate the brain of a cat. So, it will take time before we really need to discuss the ethics of intelligent machines.

For that matter: I think we extend another time the Golden rule. The golden rule is basically: don't do anything to others, what you don't want others do to you. There are variations on that, but that's it basically. The point is, the range of included beings increased over time. Back in the old days, in the golden rule wasn't included women, foreigners or people with a different skin color. But there is another point to the golden rule: you accept it for others, but you want the others to accept the golden rule too. So the declaration of robot-rights has to go in line with the robots accepting human rights.